Twitter's geeky board members as alpha males? Apparently a recent post called them just that, and the reason why they declined Google's $10 billion offer.
"Twitter's board members are a high-powered crew," writes Jessi Hempel in Fortune. "These alpha males disagree about a lot of things, according to many sources, but they all agreed not to sell Twitter."
What's strange, aside from seeing any of these guys as macho, is that Twitter is so hard to define. Even chief executive Dick Costolo wouldn't describe it as a social network.
So is it a media company? Many would say so, especially when tech giants Google and the real social network, Facebook, are considered new forms of media and media companies.Twitter does relay news, messages and advertising.
However, there are more problems brewing at Twitter. And aside from management not on the same page about what Twitter is, it's also reeling from a growth plateau. Nearly half of its users are no longer active and only one-quarter of users generate about 90 percent of tweets. (The sign of the apocalypse? Justin Bieber stopped tweeting.) The new innovations? Sorely lacking in the last two years.
While Twitter has been valuated at $3.7 billion, why didn't the companyr just take Google's $10 billion offer? (Facebook offered around $2 billion.)
Apparently, arrogance.
Tech
I suppose Twitter's board of engineers believed they would somehow create something bigger and better than a $10 billion business and scoffed at the figure. Because most people would want to spend years cooped up in an office rather than spending their early retirement on a tropical island, right? I think the Twitter boys regret this decision already.
